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Implementing simple energy- and water-efficiency upgrades in US households would save nearly $200B per year in residential utility bills.

Unfortunately, these upgrades are often unaffordable or inaccessible for the average US home.

Growing up in West Virginia, my community was largely part of the 1/3 of Americans who can’t afford their energy bills, let alone the efficient home tech upgrades that would make these bills affordable.

This is why Kaitlin Highstreet and I founded Scope Zero, where we created the Carbon Savings Account™, or CSA. The CSA is similar to a health savings account, where employers and employees both contribute funds to the account. With the CSA, the employees use the money for home technology and personal transportation upgrades that reduce their utility bills, fuel spend, and carbon footprint.

CSA-eligible upgrades include everything from Energy Star refrigerators, low-flow showerheads, smart thermostats, and LEDs, to home solar and EVs.

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Scientists are fed up. And on April 22, 2017 — Earth Day — they're taking their issues to the streets.

The March for Science is a global movement to show policymakers why allowing well-funded scientific research to help shape public policy is crucial in any thriving democracy.

"It's not only about scientists and politicians," say organizers, who've stressed that the event is nonpartisan. "It is about the very real role that science plays in each of our lives and the need to respect and encourage research that gives us insight into the world."

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Forests are downright magical.

They're where some of our favorite fables take a twist, where Mother Nature hides her most fascinating creatures, where we go to escape the manmade chaos that consumes far too much of our time.

Forests are the lungs of our world, absorbing carbon and keeping our climates stable, and the protectors of some of our most precious resources. They safeguard habitats and wildlife that allow life to move onward and even make us healthier, too; trees clean our air, lower our stress, and can actually make us happier just by beingnearby. They're spectacular.

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Here's a map of the Earth.

Photo via Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance Narukawa Laboratory.

It might look weird, but it's actually one of the most accurate world maps ever created.

Every continent, country, and ocean on this map is drawn to be proportionally accurate. It's as close as possible, size-wise, to the real thing.

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